A Modest Proposal: Apologies to Jonathan Swift

Speak Out

Cynthia Bazinet Deane Ave. Holden

For preventing the Select Board of Holden from being a burden to the citizens, and for making said Select Board beneficial to the public.

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, empty of citizens who would, of glad heart, commune with their neighbors, travail their vast acres, and favor their merchants with commerce. The masses are forced to employ all their time watching live broadcasts and reruns of their Select Board on television, arguing and bickering their way through protracted and unproductive attempts to do the citizens' business. From their commodious recliners, the people can be heard both near and far as they beseech their town leaders for less dialogue and less thoughtful debate, for such colloquy merely gums the works of progress. It is time, my fellow citizens, to, at the very least, halve the size of the Select Board in order to make fully functional the institution of municipal governance and to respond to the public clamor for thoughtful efficiency and decisive meetings.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of selectmen, their number a disgraceful five, is a very great grievance. Whoever could find a fair, cheap, and easy method of making this esteemed Board sound and useful members of the Commonwealth would deserve so well of the public as to have his status set up for a preserver of the nation. Clear the dead wood, silence the gibberish we have grown so accustomed to hearing. Cleave and make whole. Shrink the Board.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the citizens of Holden. It is of a much greater extent. Indeed, in order to provide the indefatigable leadership needed to shepherd other recalcitrant and wayward committees, to wit the Wachusett Regional School Committee, we must illuminate the Light of true governance, which is dictated by fewer voices rather than greater, which is intolerant of dissent and is adept in puppetry.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found the rabble grossly mistaken in their computation. Our esteemed Select Board cannot continue such willy-nilly perseverations. There is too much cacophony, too many notes, one might say. We must hone and refine. My projection, having been scrutinized by great thinkers and mathematicians alike, has revealed a scheme that indicates that, indeed, it is most advantageous that the Select Board be comprised of exactly one and one-half persons. No more, no less, as it were.

But how to halve a person? My recommendation, after deliberative contemplation, is to take the hindquarters, much as a cattleman might, and make a sincere and decisive flaying motion just below the discernible waistline, thereby separating the business end from the carcass. All that serves the brain and its accoutrements from the distal portions will be relieved of all utility. The business end of this partition shall utter its profundities with just as much volume and authority as if it were still attached to God's stem. All parties reap success and validation in this scheme with a vigorous and unencumbered Select Board at the ready to do the public's business. No more chorus of opinions, no more dissention, no more dithering or temporizing. Think of the efficiency!

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country. I think only of my beloved townsmen who yearn for a day when our Select Board is sufficiently devoid of diversity. 'Tis out of love and concern that I proffer these comments. Indeed, were it not for the genius of one Jonathan Swift, I may never have stumbled upon the solution to our most pressing issue, the downsizing of the Select Board.